The first time I watched an R/C jet go kablooey was in East Stamford, Conn. on an Island in the harbor that had a football/soccer field where they had a club on Saturdays and this guy tried to fly it under the goal post... needless to say, someone moved it. The F-16 disintegrated.

The first time I watched an R/C jet go kablooey was in East Stamford, Conn. on an Island in the harbor that had a football/soccer field where they had a club on Saturdays and this guy tried to fly it under the goal post... needless to say, someone moved it. The F-16 disintegrated.

Here's one that's truly gratuitous. I can't imagine flying a $10,000 toy into the ground. I can barely control my $49.95 helicopter.

The first time I watched an R/C jet go kablooey was in East Stamford, Conn. on an Island in the harbor that had a football/soccer field where they had a club on Saturdays and this guy tried to fly it under the goal post... needless to say, someone moved it. The F-16 disintegrated.

Here's one that's truly gratuitous. I can't imagine flying a $10,000 toy into the ground. I can barely control my $49.95 helicopter.

Thanks for the vids, I gave up R/C planes and switched to sailboats after crashing three that took so long to build. My pride and joy is my R/C 4.5ft tall 1903 America's Cup winner "Reliance" done almost entirely with mahogany. The largest gaff-rigged cutter ever for its time.

The first time I watched an R/C jet go kablooey was in East Stamford, Conn. on an Island in the harbor that had a football/soccer field where they had a club on Saturdays and this guy tried to fly it under the goal post... needless to say, someone moved it. The F-16 disintegrated.

Here's one that's truly gratuitous. I can't imagine flying a $10,000 toy into the ground. I can barely control my $49.95 helicopter.

Thanks for the vids, I gave up R/C planes and switched to sailboats after crashing three that took so long to build. My pride and joy is my R/C 4.5ft tall 1903 America's Cup winner "Reliance" done almost entirely with mahogany. The largest gaff-rigged cutter ever for its time.

Hz so good:Marcus Aurelius: There's always someone out there with more money than sense.

Heh. When I was a kid, I wanted a little jet-powered F16, or a B-52, or even (dare to dream) an Apache helicopter I could fit with fireworks and rain death and destruction on my GI Joes with.

My dad bought me one of those little unpowered airplanes on wires, that "fly" when you spun in a circle until you got dizzy and threw up.

Best toy EVAR.

/I would've destroyed the little jets on the first landing, anyway.

I had a P-41 Cox on a string back in about 1969, and got hooked. I crashed more than a couple R/Cs into the ground learning. We used to patch together anything that could create lift, and as long as you had enough engine, it would fly. For the most part. We had a stop sign with quad .049's on it that we had some real close calls with.

MisterTweak:Marcus Aurelius: Speaking of sense, there's people right at the edge of the runway. That have probably never seen one of these crash band burn before. It crashes and burns just like the real thing.

The first time I watched an R/C jet go kablooey was in East Stamford, Conn. on an Island in the harbor that had a football/soccer field where they had a club on Saturdays and this guy tried to fly it under the goal post... needless to say, someone moved it. The F-16 disintegrated.

Here's one that's truly gratuitous. I can't imagine flying a $10,000 toy into the ground. I can barely control my $49.95 helicopter.

Beats flying a toy into your head, I suppose. You don't practice with a simulator?

Marcus Aurelius:I had a P-41 Cox on a string back in about 1969, and got hooked.

Mine was in the early 80s. Between the plane-on-a-string, and an incident in the Boys Scouts, where a pilot foolishly asked if I wanted to take the yoke, and I promptly tried to dive bomb the local mall, it was pretty clear I was never meant to control an aircraft. Just enjoy watching them.

*snip*...We had a stop sign with quad .049's on it that we had some real close calls with.

That is so full of awesome! Oh, the mayhem my friends and I could've caused with such a device in middle or high school!!!

Actually, it's probably best we didn't. We got in trouble well enough on our own, without our own 4 engined "Octagon OF DEATH".

I used to spend my teenage years scrimping and saving every penny so I could buy balsa R/C plane kits. They would take forever to put together and you'd have to build/fly/crash at least a few before you were at all decent in the construction/tuning/flying/landing area. Lots of fingers glued to balsa wood, lots of T-pins, lots of monokote, xacto blades, screaming when a finger would get bit by a prop trying to flick-start a highly tuned two stroke engine, and taking home months of hard work in a garbage bag so you could scavenge parts for the next build.

I remember getting confident enough in my building and flying abilities that I built my first low-wing quickie 500 that had way too much engine and a tuned exhaust nearly as long as the fuselage.

The first time I rolled up on the throttle and it took to the air I knew that in those couple months hunched over a table late into the night I'd built flying perfection. Within a couple tanks of gas and a bit of trimming I was doing triple-digit-speed inverted passes feet off the ground without even so much as a facial tic.

So it was inevitable, at the end of the day as I was feeling cocky and bringing it in for a landing I decided to drop it down on the asphalt instead of in the dirt field like I normally would. And it would have been a glorious landing had I not been so intent at setting it down perfectly right at my feet that I totally focused right past the 'No Parking' sign on the pole between me and my plane.

The DING! the exhaust made as it hit the pole made every head in the area snap around. It quickly sheared off the right half of the wing and left horizontal stabilizer in a flurry of balsa and fluttering monokote. It then did a quick roll and landed belly first on the asphalt snapping off the gear... what was left sliding past me by inches as I stood there dumbstruck, the plane eventually coming to rest about 20 feet later.

When I picked up the fuse the wing and tail were sheared off so clean you'd think I'd flown through a high speed bandsaw. I never hit another obstruction ever again while landing after that.

/eventually after about a month I had it back together and flying//never flew as good as that first day///still amazed to this day I can fly a tiny electric three channel rc helicopter in my living room for 20 bucks

moike:I used to spend my teenage years scrimping and saving every penny so I could buy balsa R/C plane kits. They

Not so cool story bro time... I graduated from Estes Rockets to a giant (to me, anyway) sail plane model. Each wing was 3-3.5 feet long. I didn't have a proper work area so I tried pinning the wing section to my grandmother's linoleum floor so I could glue it. Thus ended my short-lived model airplane building career.

technofiend:moike: I used to spend my teenage years scrimping and saving every penny so I could buy balsa R/C plane kits. They

Not so cool story bro time... I graduated from Estes Rockets to a giant (to me, anyway) sail plane model. Each wing was 3-3.5 feet long. I didn't have a proper work area so I tried pinning the wing section to my grandmother's linoleum floor so I could glue it. Thus ended my short-lived model airplane building career.

I was able to find a fairly thick bit of flat scrap plywood, drag it home, and cobble together a worktable out of it. But yeah, the gliders I built had six foot wingspans and I only had enough table space to build 3ft of wing at a time. Technically I probably should not have been spending hours in a small poorly ventilated space with all that cyanoacrylate, epoxy, paint, lead solder, and nitro. But it probably explains why I can only count to potato.

moike:technofiend: moike: I used to spend my teenage years scrimping and saving every penny so I could buy balsa R/C plane kits. They

Not so cool story bro time... I graduated from Estes Rockets to a giant (to me, anyway) sail plane model. Each wing was 3-3.5 feet long. I didn't have a proper work area so I tried pinning the wing section to my grandmother's linoleum floor so I could glue it. Thus ended my short-lived model airplane building career.

I was able to find a fairly thick bit of flat scrap plywood, drag it home, and cobble together a worktable out of it. But yeah, the gliders I built had six foot wingspans and I only had enough table space to build 3ft of wing at a time. Technically I probably should not have been spending hours in a small poorly ventilated space with all that cyanoacrylate, epoxy, paint, lead solder, and nitro. But it probably explains why I can only count to potato.

I assume there are restrictions where you can fly, I know there is a few RC airfields around here and I don't see them on school grounds which I would think would make a great place to fly. I don't know if there is a clear line between the ones you can fly in your home/back yard and the ones you can't though. I believe the RC airfields require a licence of some type, but it may just be a club membership.

/The crash videos squelch any consideration of one large enough to fly in.//I may quit going to watch them fly, or sit in my car when I see something larger than I want to get hit with.

The first time I watched an R/C jet go kablooey was in East Stamford, Conn. on an Island in the harbor that had a football/soccer field where they had a club on Saturdays and this guy tried to fly it under the goal post... needless to say, someone moved it. The F-16 disintegrated.

Here's one that's truly gratuitous. I can't imagine flying a $10,000 toy into the ground. I can barely control my $49.95 helicopter.

Thanks for the vids, I gave up R/C planes and switched to sailboats after crashing three that took so long to build. My pride and joy is my R/C 4.5ft tall 1903 America's Cup winner "Reliance" done almost entirely with mahogany. The largest gaff-rigged cutter ever for its time.

TheGogmagog:I assume there are restrictions where you can fly, I know there is a few RC airfields around here and I don't see them on school grounds which I would think would make a great place to fly. I don't know if there is a clear line between the ones you can fly in your home/back yard and the ones you can't though. I believe the RC airfields require a licence of some type, but it may just be a club membership.

No license requirement that I know of, but a lot of fields require a membership in the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) before you can fly there. With electric planes a lot of flying spots can be used that wouldn't necessarily be acceptable for nitro powered models. I fly my electrics at the local sports complex but I would *never* consider flying a gas model there...way too dangerous.

A lot of folks wouldn't know this, but larger R/C planes are actually easier to fly. The trick with this bird is takeoff and landing...you'd need a considerably long strip for each, especially the landing.

I'd bet that model cost a lot more than $2900 though....a lot of the guys at the field have large scale models with 5-6ft wingspans and it's easy to put $1500 into one.

Could be that the kit for the plane costs that, but count on lots more when you start loading it up with the necessary hardware required to fly it.